Data Interpretation by School Leaders: Attributions of Performance Disparities

• In Event: 34.094 - Fairmont Royal York Roundtable Session Six
  In Roundtable Session: 34.094-9 - Data Use Practices: Leadership Perspectives

Abstract

This study investigated how students, families and communities were positioned by school leaders. Two dozen school administrators and teacher-leaders were provided with a customized data visualization tool (the Achievement Gap Visualizer) and interviewed about their explanations for variation in performance across multiple schools as well as the variability in outcomes by their own students. Most participants were reluctant to address considerations of race-based differences, preferring instead to concentrate upon poverty and English fluency as the source of achievement gaps. In addition to colorblindness, school leaders also ascribed inequitable outcomes as a consequence of weak education students received in prior schools. A few leaders chose to position their schools as the sources of disparities rather than ascribe those to students’ shortcomings.

Authors

• John Settlage, University of Connecticut - Avery Point

• Luis Suarez, University of Connecticut - Avery Point